


warm is the night (when I'm with you)

by biancarambles



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Universe, Fluff, I just needed a tender moment between Jaskier and Geralt, M/M, Slow Dancing, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion, barely any plot honestly, just fluff for fluff's sake, the one in which Geralt finds out all Jaskier's ballads are about him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25051273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biancarambles/pseuds/biancarambles
Summary: When Geralt and Jaskier are turned away (again) from a less than friendly innkeeper, they have no other choice than camping outside before getting to Oxenfurt. Nearby wedding celebrations give the pair a taste of what an ordinary life would be like for them, were they not on the path."Dance with me.” Jaskier’s voice broke the silence, tentative at first, more flustered than Geralt remembered it.He crossed his arms against his chest, cocking an eyebrow. The moldy cheese and lack of warm bathwater surely had turned Jaskier temporarily insane. “Witchers don’t dance.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 19
Kudos: 200
Collections: Geraskier Midsummer Mini Bang





	warm is the night (when I'm with you)

“Geralt, for the last time, I’m not gonna turn up to Oxenfurt covered in griffin guts, thank you very much.” Jaskier looked at his dirty, ripped doublet and shuddered. “I may be a travelling bard to a witcher but have a reputation to uphold.”

Geralt grunted, tuning out Jaskier’s chatter, as he dismounted and tied Roach to a nearby fence. He had no idea why he’d been cursed to have a companion that was both equally vain and of delicate constitution.

“Stop complaining.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it,” Jaskier continued, unfazed, pointing at the closest building. A faded sign above the door read ‘The Alchemy’. 

Geralt rolled his eyes but said nothing, petting Roach’s face gently. The horse nuzzled its face against his hand knowingly. Picking his battles was something Geralt’d learnt early on after meeting the bard. 

After an unceremonious knock, Jaskier pranced inside the tavern without waiting for an answer. With a charming smile, he planted himself in front of the innkeeper, an unfriendly, brawny bald man in his early forties. 

Preparing for his own battle, Jaskier flashed more teeth than necessary and Geralt could distinctly feel Jaskier’s tone of voice turn into the sweet honey he always used to get his way.

“Good sir, we have just come to this lovely inn after an epic battle with a fearsome monster. You have pretty staff and stout plenty and we’d like to spend the evening here.” 

The barmaid in the back smiled, without looking up from the tankard she was drying, and Geralt rolled his eyes. While flattery could get Jaskier anywhere, it mostly led him to trouble. 

“We’re full,” the man scowled, crossing his arms against his chest. He glanced at Geralt without meeting his eyes, lingering over the wolf medallion and the bloodstains on his leather plates.

Geralt sighed as Jaskier raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat. He wasn’t used to being ignored or denied. “We just need a room. We have travelled far. Surely killing the griffin that was mauling the town’s flocks must mean something to you.” It wasn’t a question. 

“I don’t have any sheep.”

“Not the point,” Jaskier hissed. 

“We are full.” The man stiffened and turned around, ready to deliver two overflowing tankards to the closest table.

“I apologize for Henrik.” The barmaid glanced up for a second towards her boss, resting her hands on her apron. “I’d say that he isn’t usually like this but he is.” 

“Seems like it,” Jaskier said and she blushed at his sympathetic smile. Geralt rolled his eyes. 

“John the blacksmith and the daughter of the butcher are getting married tomorrow and the whole town is in a bit of a bustle,” she continued, turning around, coy, and grabbing another tankard to polish. “They chose the Rosemary and Thistle Tavern on the other side of the town and Henrik isn’t happy about it. You know how it is…” 

“Being freelance sounds more appealing now, doesn’t it?”, Jaskier whispered to him under his breath, then flashed another smile to the barmaid. “Is there really nothing you can do?”, he asked in a conspiratorial fashion, stroking the sticky wood slate, voice and lips all smooth curves, blue eyes beaming in the candlelight. 

Geralt rolled his eyes again. Why did every word coming out of Jaskier’s mouth sound like honey? Was he even able to speak normally without having to flirt with every breathing creature they crossed paths with? 

The barmaid blushed again, this time looking down at her hands. “I think one of our guests mentioned leaving before tonight. I’ll need to double-check.” She glanced towards Henrik, who was now discussing with two intimidated patrons. 

“Anything. We’re really adaptable,” Jaskier continued, his hands slowly inching across the slate, towards the barmaid. “We don’t need much, just a warm meal and some ale and we’ll be on our way before morning.” 

Before he could make it halfway, a tankard was slammed dangerously close to Jaskier’s wandering hand. 

“Stop bothering Clarence,” the innkeeper boomed, staring down at the bard. 

Jaskier pulled back his hand. “Watch it, peasant, that’s my lute hand.” 

“We are full,” the man scowled, still not daring to look at Geralt. “And even if he had rooms, those of his kind are not welcome here.”

Geralt shrugged. It was fine. He would’ve slept just as well outside with Roach on a makeshift bed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been refused service from an inn. The silver and steel swords certainly didn’t invite pleasant conversation in the best case, but such was his life and he had decades to make his peace with it. 

Clearly, the same thing couldn’t be said about Jaskier. His pulse started quickening and the ever so slightly pointy ears turned red. “You’d be so lucky to have us in your ramshackle tavern,” he muttered, planting his hands firmly on his hips. 

Geralt couldn’t suppress a smile. Just like all nobles Geralt had the misfortune to meet, Jaskier didn’t excel at conflict de-escalation. 

Jaskier quickly turned to Clarence, who was now standing just behind her annoying boss. “No offence, Clarence, you’re lovely.” 

She blushed (again?!) and Geralt scoffed. Did barmaids have anything better to do than blushing at charming bards? “Jaskier, let it go.” Geralt placed a hand on Jaskier’s shoulders and the other seemed to relax a bit.

“Fine.” The bard conceded, putting his hands up in the air. “When I’ll make him famous, you’ll be sorry for refusing service to the White Wolf,” he sneered, marching all the way to the door before turning towards Geralt. “You coming?”

Geralt nodded before following Jaskier outside without another look to barmaid nor innkeeper. His bard was annoying and feisty and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 

***

So, kicked out of the tavern, they set camp just outside town. He had started a fire and Jaskier was now practicing his latest pieces, strumming lazily on his lute. Tied to a birch tree, Roach happily grazed a grass patch. The only sounds to be heard were the nearby stream and a concert of crickets and cicadas. 

As he was coming back from the nearby woods with his hands full of branches, Geralt looked at the scene unfolding around the bonfire. It was familiar and domestic; he smiled. It was the epitome of a picture-perfect summer evening on the road. Sod the tavern, the innkeeper and civilization at large. 

So Geralt stayed silent, observing his bard pluck at the lute chords, quill in mouth, and stop every few minutes to annotate little scribbles on the parchment laid on the floor, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. 

“Is it coming along?”

Jaskier sighed dramatically without looking up. “The Muse is elusive today, but I soldier on.”

Geralt crouched down, laid down the twigs and fed a few to the fire. “We all have our battles.” 

He nodded solemnly, chewing on the end of the quill. “Trying to make you likeable is the hardest battle of all,” he said, the little fucker, turning to him with a gleam in his eyes. 

“And here I thought slaying monsters counted for something.”

Jaskier shrugged and laughed, raising his eyes from the parchment to look at him. “Some battles are more honourable than others.” 

“Didn’t think you’d be an authority in honour,” he commented, raising an eyebrow. Jaskier was notorious for his tendency to hide his sausage in the wrong pantries. 

“Touché.” Jaskier rolled back his parchment together and got up to store it back in one of the satchels. After a few seconds of rummaging, he plummeted back next to Geralt, stretching his legs. “I’m off for today. One can’t only live on poetry,” he said as he offered him a piece of slightly mouldy cheese (and not in the good way). “Only the finest cheese for the finest witcher in the Northern Kingdoms.”

He rolled his eyes and took the cheese without a word. Not that he noticed, but Jaskier’s eyes were smiling too now, those fine lines telling of all the nights they spent camped outside, Geralt listening to Jaskier’s unfinished creations and Jaskier listening to the rhythmic sound of Geralt sharpening his swords. 

They ate and sat in silence until the sun melted down and painted the sky in a triumph of violet and orange. The silence was too familiar, the sunset too breath-taking and Geralt wasn’t one for futile conversation anyway. He didn’t know what he did to deserved that little peace on the road, but he was both grateful and painfully aware of its ephemerality.

As the night fell, another fire was lit up from on the other side of the river, barely a firefly in the heavy darkness of the cloudy sky. Coming from the east, the light summer breeze brought the smell of freshly cut flowers and sweet pastries, mixed with the bonfire. The softest hint of a traditional wedding song was filling the air and Geralt noticed Jaskier humming along to the melody and tapping his right foot, his chin resting on his intertwined hands, gaze lost above the horizon. 

“Do you miss it?” 

Jaskier’s voice shook him off from thoughts and Geralt stifled a groan. For an ordinary human, Jaskier had the uncanny ability to read his mind more often than Geralt wished. Nonetheless, Geralt was also trained in pretending not to have emotions, so their dynamics were still pretty solid, in his opinion. “What?”

“Well, you know…” Jaskier gestured vaguely at the other bonfire without lifting his chin. 

“I could never have it.”

“Not what I’m asking.”

“You can’t miss something you never were supposed to have.”

Jaskier wrinkled his nose. “Of course you can. Do you even bother listening to me when I sing?” he asked, shaking his head dramatically in pretence offence while staring him down. “Most yearn for epic adventures in exotic places – and here’s where I come in, the humble messenger of your heroic deeds,” he winked to him, either just a force of habit or a professional hazard. You couldn’t take the charmer out of him even if you tried. 

Geralt rolled his eyes as he turned his head to look at Jaskier next to him. In truth, he did seem to have just completed some sort of dangerous adventure: he’d ripped the blue doublet (his favourite, as it matched his eyes) and one side of the lapel laid down limp, golden hem frayed, exposing his undershirt and some scraggly chest hair. 

“But not you. I guess epic battles are less fun if you’re the one fighting them on the daily.” The bard shrugged to himself and continued staring intently at the embers at the heart of the fire. “No, not you.” He paused, his voice reduced to an almost whisper. “You yearn for the ordinary.” 

Geralt bit his lip, awkward. 

That was not how their conversation went: Jaskier would talk shit either about Valdo Marx and/or his music or complain about the weather, mouldy cheese and Geralt’s inability to appreciate art. Geralt, however, wasn’t one for unnecessary words, so he remained silent, all too happy to occupy his fidgeting hands by greasing up Roach’s reins, in dire need of reparations. 

He and Jaskier sat together, like they always did after a long day, their backs slumped against a single log, their arms almost touching, lulled by the sweet lapping of the stream and the distant celebrations. 

From time to time, he could feel the intensity of the bard’s gaze on him, barely matched by the bonfire burning three feet away. And yet every time he turned to look at Jaskier, he’d look away, towards the flames and towards the music and the celebrations around the other bonfire. 

“Dance with me.” Jaskier’s voice broke the silence, more tentative and flustered than Geralt remembered it. 

He crossed his arms against his chest, cocking an eyebrow. The moldy cheese and lack of warmed bathwater surely had turned Jaskier temporarily insane. “Witchers don’t dance.”

“Come on, I know you want to.” Jaskier, back to his usual shenanigans, smiled angelically, gently elbowing him. “You don’t have to fear for your reputation,” he said, teasing him, and stood up. The golden details of his doublet and his eyes, equally blue, glistened of fire. 

“ _I_ don’t dance.”

“Not even for me?” He pouted and Geralt had to admit that it seemed a fitting look on the bard. 

“I don’t know how to dance.” Geralt shook his head. Nope, no way he’d give in to Jaskier’s whims. “I’d be ridiculous.” 

“Luckily for you, I’m the best dance teacher in the Northern Kingdoms.” Jaskier smiled again, extending his hands toward him.

Geralt scoffed, rolling his eyes. It was unfair the way Jaskier’s eyes sparkled of gold in that light. That was probably how he got his way all the time without swords or being intimidating at all, that and the endless stream of flattery that honeyed mouth could spew. 

“We are in the middle of nothing. I promise you nobody will see.”

“I don’t think so.” Slaying strigas, hunting griffins and chasing kikimoras was easy, dancing was hard. He wasn’t ready to change their dynamics – Jaskier being a fool and Geralt suffering his disastrousness in silence, secretly amused. He stared begrudgingly at the crackling embers with a scowl. 

“Stop brooding. My offer won’t last forever, you know?” Jaskier urged him, wriggling his fingers like little worms.

Geralt got up, ardently wishing he was alone and covered in monster guts in a squalid joint. At least Roach couldn’t make fun of his poor attempts at dancing.

“It will be our little secret.” Jaskier’s smile widened and, oh boy, it was a sight to behold. He grabbed Geralt’s hand so effortlessly that the witcher worried he’d done it countless times to butter up his conquests. 

He tensed up, legs stiff and anchored to his place like a big, dumb statue. “I look stupid.”

“It’s because you’re so stiff, silly,” Jaskier chuckled, tilting his head back a little. He took Geralt’s other hand, rested it on his shoulder and Geralt just let him do it, powerless. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he continued, his other hand on Geralt’s waist like it had always belonged there. “Let _me_ lead, for once.”

They started swaying in place. Painfully aware of their closeness and yet too self-conscious to fully lean into it, Geralt stopped breathing. Dancing was awful and those nobles made it look way too easy. 

“Don’t stare at your feet, Geralt.” Jaskier lifted his hand from Geralt’s wait and lifted his chin, his touch almost too gentle and tender for him to bear. “Look at me and, for the love of god, breathe,” he whispered, so close that Geralt could feel the unnatural warmth of his skin. 

Geralt swallowed, throat dry. 

Jaskier had already proven his mind-reading capability and Geralt’s own thoughts were too focused on Jaskier’s body pressed on his own, too complicated and too inconvenient to be acknowledged by their main protagonist. Not that the closeness of his lips ever so slightly parted was helping at all. Or the fact that Jaskier’s eyes were so blue, so much like the ocean, that they could swallow him whole and leave him sputtering saltwater, abandoned on the shore of some deserted island, having to build his life from scratch again. 

Jaskier bit his bottom lip. “I didn’t say to stare at my lips,” he giggled, somewhat nervously, Geralt thought. 

How was it even possible to not stare when he was doing _that_?

Geralt forced himself to look at him, to dive headfirst in those treacherous whirlpools of ocean blue, but instead he met still mountain lakes. Then he saw him for what it felt like the first time: Jaskier was looking a little worse for wear – doublet ripped, dried blood, eyes tired and bloodshot from the lack of sleep – and yet he’d never looked better in Geralt’s eyes. 

Five years in, between all the monster-slaying, the rough nights and the mouldy cheese, Jaskier knew him best. There was no need to speak after a long hunt and the bard’s presence and soft music were often a healing salve for his own rough edges, despite Geralt’s pretend complaints. No, there was nowhere he’d rather be. All the inns of the world couldn’t compare to this. 

“I am terrible at this,” he groaned, unable to control the corners of his mouth from turning upwards. 

Jaskier shushed him. “It’s because you’re thinking too much.” He chuckled, pressing his forehead against Geralt, slowly, as if he were afraid of Geralt’s reaction. “Hey, I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Geralt rolled his eyes, but he relaxed into Jaskier’s embrace nonetheless. He would have never made a great – or even a passable – dancer, but Jaskier didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed perfectly content to guide his good-for-nothing-dancer witcher instead of having a warm meal at the tavern or participating in the wedding celebrations on the other side of the river. 

Jaskier, then, opened his hand and intertwined their fingers, with a happy sigh, leaning back with his eyes closed. Geralt’s cheeks burned, probably from the closeness of the bonfire and nothing else. 

When Jaskier opened his eyes again, Geralt could see himself reflected in their warm light: he looked (dare he say) happy. Relaxed. Carefree. Something he’d never called himself and something that he thought he could never be. 

Is this what _ordinary_ felt like? 

Gently swaying in the night, drunk on the heat of bonfire and on Jaskier’s body pressed against his, Geralt felt incandescently happy. No, that couldn’t be ordinary, not for people like him. 

“I get your ballads now.” He paused, savouring the feeling of Jaskier’s smooth palms against his calli. “You know, those about love and all that mushy stuff.”

“It’s about time,” Jaskier commented, laughing and squeezing his hand tighter. “Everybody in the continent knows they’re about you anyway.”

Geralt furrowed his brows. About him? They couldn’t be. Those beautiful pieces of poetry couldn’t possibly be written about him, a monster good only for slaying other monsters and being kicked out of taverns. 

Jaskier laughed again and Geralt wished he could’ve spent his unnaturally long life listening to that sound. “Sometimes you can be a bit thick, Witcher,” he whispered, leaning in closer, lifting his hand from Geralt’s waist and cradling his nape. “You’re not the monster you think you are.” 

He paused and Geralt inhaled deeply, feeling his heart sink. Around their bonfire the silence was deafening too, only interrupted by the sporadic crackling of embers and the cicadas singing their songs. 

“Not to me.” Jaskier intertwined his hands around Geralt’s neck, drawing him closer and closer until he was overwhelmed by Jaskier’s scent, the closest thing he’d ever considered home ever since he’d been on the Path.

“You know what they’d say if they saw us?”

Geralt mumbled a “what” in response, nose buried in Jaskier’s collarbone, with no intention to move for the foreseeable future. 

“They’d say that Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove and bard extraordinaire, has given into philanthropy and now teaches brutes how to dance.”

Geralt laughed. Of course Jaskier had to ruin the moment. It was now a little imperfect, just like them, and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He squeezed Jaskier tighter in response.

As the embers turned to ash and the night faded into a glowing dawn, they relished in the bliss of a warm summer evening, tasting the ordinary novelty of holding each other and dancing slowly, home at last. 

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say to excuse myself? I am weak, my loves, and I am wanting of some tender moments between our boys amidst all the monster-slaying and general badassery. Fluff is just *chef’s kiss* 
> 
> Unofficially part of the geraskier midsummerbang 2020. I hadn’t had time to join as an author but I wanted to contribute with a lil something.


End file.
